Give Us This Day Our Bailey's Bread

Brace yourselves....we went to church this morning. I know! I'm just as surprised as you are.
I'm sure my mom just fell on the floor from the shock of it all.

Quite honestly, I haven't been to church in a long time and I don't have a real good reason for this dry spell. My absence was never about God; it was all about me.

I just didn't feel like going.
And I like to go grocery shopping on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Caroline and I went to church this morning. It was okay. I'll probably go again.

But you know what bugged me?

The over abundance of iPhones being used to pull up the Bible verses. Oh, and the pastor's use of the iPad for his sermon notes.

Seriously. That totally bugged me and I have no idea why. It's ridiculous, I know.

And what's even funnier, just this week I read something on the very same topic.

How relevant.

So after church, which starts at 11 and gets out right at lunch time, Caroline tried every trick in her limited, yet ever growing, arsenal of beggary/whinery tricks to get me to stop for lunch. I fully anticipated this, because I'm wise to her ways, and probably used many of them on my own mom, so I packed a snack for her to eat on the way home. As I was digging into the depths of my purse, searching for said snack, Caroline was secretly hoping that the granola bar had gone missing. Because then, I'd HAVE to stop at McDonalds. Surely I wouldn't let my one and only child STARVE TO DEATH on the 15 minute drive home. Only a monster would make her kid wait a few extra minutes for lunch.

Fortunately, the granola bar was found and Caroline's Happy Meal plans were foiled. Ha!

And then, she was forced to eat grilled cheese. Oh. the. horror.

I encountered a moldy bread situation the other day and was left only with some whole wheat bagel thins to use as the bread medium for Caroline's grilled cheese. And this, my friends, is where I entered the world of real motherhood. I used a common mom phrase; the type of phrase your mom used on you which caused you to roll your eyes at her utter uncoolness factor and then vowed to never, never, NEVER use that phrase on your own kids.

You know how when you were a kid and you wanted the latest, greatest gadget or toy? You'd go to your parents and ask for it. And they'd probably say no because it was too expensive or came with too many little pieces that your little sister might choke on. And after you whined a bit and jumped around and begged like your life depended on it and they still said no, you'd say, "but Madison P. has one, why can't I?" And your parents would inevitably say, "Well, I'm not Madison P.'s parent. I'm YOUR parent."

Ugh.

You know how it goes.

Same thing with parties you wanted to attend or movies you wanted to see. It didn't matter if Jessica's parents let her see a PG-13 movie. You weren't allowed because your parents were responsible for you and you only. Not Jessica. Or Michelle. Or Madison P.

So, as I informed Caroline that her grilled cheese sandwich was going to be made on a whole wheat bagel thin, she said "why don't you ever buy white bread?"

And I replied, "Because I buy whole wheat; it's what I think is best for us." You know, standard answer.

To which Caroline said, "but Bailey has white bread."

Guess where this is going....

"Well," I said "I don't buy Bailey's bread; I buy bread for YOU and I want you to eat whole wheat."

It's not quite on the "if your friends jump off a cliff, would you follow?" calibre of standard parental answers, but it's up there. I'm afraid that I've officially joined the ranks of the, ugh-I've-entered the-common-mom-phrase-uttering-phase-of-my-life.

Not that I have ever been all that cool, but I fear what little coolness I might have possessed is being slowly leeched from my very core.

So long self. Hello mom jeans.